The Death of the Christmas Card

When I think back to Christmases long, long ago, I think of mantelpieces draped in tinsel and adorned with multitudes of Christmas cards. Scenes of smiling snowmen, robins on a branch, and baby Jesus in a manger all litter the house with Christmas cheer. Messages from relatives and friends, who, whilst barely seen during the year, never forget to send their well-wishes come 1 December. I fear I’m beginning to sound like an inhabitant of Whoville, but you get the gist.

In the last couple of years, however, my mantelpiece has been shockingly bare. There are no penguins adorably dressed in a hat and scarf to wink at me as I walk to the fridge, no well-wishes from that Great Aunt I never see. With the emergence of the digital age and the rise of eco-conscious behaviour, Christmas cards are dying out. They have suffered the same death as the plastic straw; a sign of times gone by, when we so frivolously wasted our limited resources. And, no, the e-card is not a viable alternative to the original. It’s the charming Christmas card’s impersonal, sent-to-all, evil twin. Headed with the ubiquitous ‘Happy Holidays’ and sent straight to my junk folder. You can’t put an e-card on the mantelpiece, can you?

The Christmas card as a commercial phenomenon was first invented by Henry Cole, a senior civil servant who assisted in setting up the new ‘Public Record Office’, known to us today as the Post Office. In 1843, Henry Cole, like all other BNOCs, found himself unable to respond to the huge amount of letters he had received wishing him a Merry Christmas. Stamps had just been invented, and the Victorians were sending letters like nobody’s business. Cole just didn’t have time to answer all his admirers. So, he hatched a plan: alongside artist friend J. C. Horsley, Cole devised a triptych displaying a family celebrating Christmas at a table, with images of people helping the poor on either side. He had a thousand copies made with the salutation ‘To: ___’, allowing Cole to personalise each card, which was also inscribed with the classic greeting of ‘A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year’. Cole sent as many as he required and sold the rest for one shilling each. And so the first commercial Christmas card was born.

Across the pond, the first American Christmas card is said to be the brainchild of print shop owner and Prussian immigrant Louis Prang. In 1875, he sent the distinctly non-festive image of a flower to all his friends, embossed with a simple ‘Merry Christmas’. This led to a long tradition in the States of simple, artistic, and subtle Christmas cards, featuring scenes hardly wintry or festive, not at all like the maximalist ones you see today. 

In 1894, Gleeson White, an influential British arts writer devoted a whole issue of his magazine, The Studio, to Christmas cards. He appreciated their varied artworks, yet found the messages held within very uninspiring. He stated, “It’s obvious that for the sake of their literature, no collection would be worth making.” Clearly, he didn’t want to have ‘a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.’

Christmas cards only really took off the ground in 1915. A postcard printing company in Kansas City (now Hallmark) published a holiday card, in a new book-type format (able to be opened and closed), with enough room to write anything you wanted! All the news you’d accumulated over the past year could now be crammed into a card, enclosed by a beaming red-cloaked Santa holding his sack. Their popularity grew enormously, with artists such as Salvador Dali and Norman Rockwell commissioned to create charmingly festive artwork to adorn their fronts. This was a far more lucrative business than it would be today.

In writing this article, I think I’m beginning to sound like a Christmas card pioneer, as if I’m about to march down North Street with placards and a megaphone, throwing them at every passerby. But, truth be told, I haven’t written a Christmas card in years. So I’m not really ready to die on this snowy little hill, robin perched on my dead body… 

Illustration by Amelia Freeden